On the 18 September 2016 Alex Rae got the blame and was told to feck off. St Mirren continued on a downward spiral and the forums were split on the new guy as the team plummeted towards the third tier of Scottish Football for the first time in their History. The future looked bleaker than a day out with the seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn. Our scalp was claimed every week and Comparisons between Jack Ross and General Custer were arguable. From week 5 to week 30 of that season we were ensconced in the automatic relegation spot.

Somehow, somewhere something changed into what was a magnificent season that magically unfolded in fairy tale proportions as the Great Escape became etched in the annuls of St Mirren History.

One of my main memories of that season was a little ditty the W7 crew had been chanting which became synonymous with our championship win. “We’re on our way,” was certainly looking like being on our way to oblivion but it wasn’t until one day in the Pie queue at Palmerston when I heard them signing that we were on our way to the Premiership and I laughed like Feck.

How we were going to get there, I certainly didn’t know and while they didn’t care, the chances of it happening any time soon looked remoter than Shull becoming a Full blooded, died in the wool old firm fan. There was fecking no chance.

But the W7 mob had a goal. They knew where they wanted to be and thankfully JR had the same idea. The stupid fecking, nonsensical song being sung at a time when St Mirren looked to be disappearing into Football Oblivion became the St Mirren Championship winning anthem.

Many of the Corporate motivation theorist actually teach that getting to where you want to be is not about how you get there but that the identification of what you want to achieve is the only thing that is important and the logistics are something we shouldn’t care about so the W7 lads and lasses where right up there with Modern Motivational thinking.

Does anyone know a song about avoiding relegation and going on to win the Premiership and the Champions league?

If Oran, the team, W7 and the rest of us can Unite in a song, we’ll be on our way.

“People Who Are Crazy Enough To Think They Can Change The World, Are The Ones Who Do.”

On the 18 September 2016 Alex Rae got the blame and was told to feck off. St Mirren continued on a downward spiral and the forums were split on the new guy as the team plummeted towards the third tier of Scottish Football for the first time in their History. The future looked bleaker than a day out with the seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn. Our scalp was claimed every week and Comparisons between Jack Ross and General Custer were arguable. From week 5 to week 30 of that season we were ensconced in the automatic relegation spot.

Somehow, somewhere something changed into what was a magnificent season that magically unfolded in fairy tale proportions as the Great Escape became etched in the annuls of St Mirren History.

One of my main memories of that season was a little ditty the W7 crew had been chanting which became synonymous with our championship win. “We’re on our way,” was certainly looking like being on our way to oblivion but it wasn’t until one day in the Pie queue at Palmerston when I heard them signing that we were on our way to the Premiership and I laughed like Feck.

How we were going to get there, I certainly didn’t know and while they didn’t care, the chances of it happening any time soon looked remoter than Shull becoming a Full blooded, died in the wool old firm fan. There was fecking no chance.

But the W7 mob had a goal. They knew where they wanted to be and thankfully JR had the same idea. The stupid fecking, nonsensical song being sung at a time when St Mirren looked to be disappearing into Football Oblivion became the St Mirren Championship winning anthem.

Many of the Corporate motivation theorist actually teach that getting to where you want to be is not about how you get there but that the identification of what you want to achieve is the only thing that is important and the logistics are something we shouldn’t care about so the W7 lads and lasses where right up there with Modern Motivational thinking.

Does anyone know a song about avoiding relegation and going on to win the Premiership and the Champions league?

If Oran, the team, W7 and the rest of us can Unite in a song, we’ll be on our way.

“People Who Are Crazy Enough To Think They Can Change The World, Are The Ones Who Do.”

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Many of the Corporate motivation theorist actually teach that getting to where you want to be is not about how you get there but that the identification of what you want to achieve is the only thing that is important and the logistics are something we shouldn’t care about

And IMO they are completely wrong.

It's all about the journey not the destination.

Focussing only on the destination increases stress and has a demotivating impact.

If you want to ensure you win a Cup, you should not be obsessing over lifting the Cup itself. Instead you should be splitting the journey into individual chunks of individual games en route and trying to win those chunks. The Cup takes care of itself.

There is not much point reaching a destination if you are mentally broken by the stress by the time you get there.

Oh and I am pretty certain that W7 did not either change the world or change our season. Despite what players and management will tell them.

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If you want to ensure you win a Cup, you should not be obsessing over lifting the Cup itself. Instead you should be splitting the journey into individual chunks of individual games en route and trying to win those chunks. The Cup takes care of itself.

So when we play Alloa, we shouldn’t be singing “We’ll be there, when the Saints go up to lift the Scottish Cup...” which in fairness hasn’t worked for the past three decades.

Instead we should sing - We’re on our way, we’re on our way, to the Last 16, we’re on our way if we are winning. If drawing - We’re on our way, we’re on our way, to Recreation Park, we’re on our way.

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And IMO they are completely wrong. It's all about the journey not the destination. Focussing only on the destination increases stress and has a demotivating impact. If you want to ensure you win a Cup, you should not be obsessing over lifting the Cup itself. Instead you should be splitting the journey into individual chunks of individual games en route and trying to win those chunks. The Cup takes care of itself. There is not much point reaching a destination if you are mentally broken by the stress by the time you get there. Oh and I am pretty certain that W7 did not either change the world or change our season. Despite what players and management will tell them.

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So when we play Alloa, we shouldn’t be singing “We’ll be there, when the Saints go up to lift the Scottish Cup...” which in fairness hasn’t worked for the past three decades.

Instead we should sing - We’re on our way, we’re on our way, to the Last 16, we’re on our way if we are winning. If drawing - We’re on our way, we’re on our way, to Recreation Park, we’re on our way.

(In all seriousness I do agree to take things one game at a time)

I remember some old advice about picturing yourself holding the Cup or succeeding at whatever you were involved in. This is supposed to be a motivator and quite frankly it is absolute horseshit advice. You must enjoy the process of achieving or your life becomes 99% crap and stressful with, if you are lucky, 1% joy. Seems a really terrible way to live your life but each to their own I suppose. Focussing on each step of the journey means your life is 99% enjoyable with the added bonus of getting a huge high as well. When the low comes (relegation for example) it's a temporary low followed by renewed hope for the next season. There's no downside.

I know you are agreeing with me here but I had to get that off my chest after years of having to put up with business networking nights stuffed with these "life coaches" or "business coaches" bending my ear with their nonsense.

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I remember some old advice about picturing yourself holding the Cup or succeeding at whatever you were involved in. This is supposed to be a motivator and quite frankly it is absolute horseshit advice. You must enjoy the process of achieving or your life becomes 99% crap and stressful with, if you are lucky, 1% joy. Seems a really terrible way to live your life but each to their own I suppose. Focussing on each step of the journey means your life is 99% enjoyable with the added bonus of getting a huge high as well. When the low comes (relegation for example) it's a temporary low followed by renewed hope for the next season. There's no downside.

I know you are agreeing with me here but I had to get that off my chest after years of having to put up with business networking nights stuffed with these "life coaches" or "business coaches" bending my ear with their nonsense.

I feel better now.

In all fairness I get what you’re saying. Take Leicester City for instance. Yeah, they probably all had images of lifting the EPL title, but they were never serious to begin with. As it happened, they took it one game at a time, fought hard (I’m sure they had a few comebacks from 2-0 down early doors) and once they hit the halfway point, started to realise what was possible. Even then, the aim was to get in Europe, just to take the pressure off them a little bit with the title fight. Every manager will always want to aim high, but I doubt Raneiri entered the dressing room on the first day of pre-season and said “Right lads, I want to see us win the league or I’ll be very disappointed in you lot”.

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Without a vision of where you want to be and how it will feel when you are there then people are likely to remain cynical and at best be late adaptors, late adopters who often without knowing it are slowing or stopping progress. Once you have established where you want to be then, and only then, is it possible (IMO) to start planning how to get there. The journey will be full of problems, these are in danger of sucking the life out of those involved and require the owners and managers to live out in real time how strongly they believe in the vision and the values.

The idea of a song is not at all stupid and is, I think, well timed.

Working with a big Bank in Turkey myself and my team were struck by the degree to which people Identified themselves with their employees. Getting fed up with conventional discussions, I asked a group if they could identify a song or a poem that summed up how they felt. Loosely the answer translated into a Turkish Song which said "If you didn't exist I would have to invent you. " Others, including an employee in their middle 50's told me how well the CEO listened and then acted on suggestions made. The CEO had in fact errected a bust of the guy within the branch (he also got paid). His reaction was... "If you cut me, I will bleed green " green being their corporate colour.

It's just too easy to be either cynical and/or mechanistic in ourapproach and lose sight of what we can achieve when people unite behind a common vision.

Feel free to take a different view. This was bothering way the fastest growing Bank in that country with over1,000 branches.

As everywhere, there were things they could do better and they were desperate to learn from others.

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Working with a big Bank in Turkey myself and my team were struck by the degree to which people Identified themselves with their employees. Getting fed up with conventional discussions, I asked a group if they could identify a song or a poem that summed up how they felt. Loosely the answer translated into a Turkish Song which said "If you didn't exist I would have to invent you. " Others, including an employee in their middle 50's told me how well the CEO listened and then acted on suggestions made. The CEO had in fact errected a bust of the guy within the branch (he also got paid). His reaction was... "If you cut me, I will bleed green " green being their corporate colour.